Those of us who oppose the misguided high-speed train must continue to beat the drum and raise public awareness as well as to challenge CHSRA Chairman Curt Pringle regarding total funding, ridership projections and ticket prices before we move forward.
The following Editorial is from today’s San Diego’s Union-Tribune. While I should only utilize part of any publication text, I have no desire to spin their words and am crediting them as I post the entire editorial with the link to follow.
Needed: a pragmatic Pringle
No public subsidy? No investors. No investors? No bullet train
By Union-Tribune Editorial Board,
Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 12:02 a.m.
The language of Proposition 1A – the November 2008 ballot measure providing $9.95 billion in bond seed money toward construction of a public-private high-speed rail system linking Northern and Southern California – offered the measure’s many skeptics one crucial reassurance.
Yes, the proposition built off fantastic claims about vast annual ridership (more than double all of Amtrak’s yearly total), huge job creation, sharp traffic reduction and massive environmental relief. Yes, its price tag was almost certainly at least $20 billion too low. Yes, there was an utter disconnect between promises about the speed with which the bullet train would go from San Francisco to Los Angeles and the many stops it would have to make all the way. Yes, there was a delusional quality to the assertion that an S.F.-to-L.A. ticket would cost just $55.
But a key provision in Proposition 1A protects taxpayers from this looming boondoggle: its explicit prohibition on any public operating subsidy. This means that investors – who must contribute at least $10 billion toward the system – will ultimately determine whether the bullet-train system is built. And with their risk of financial loss from an unsound investment, they are far less likely than voters to be bamboozled by the preposterous claims made by the political and media establishment.
That’s exactly what is happening. The first business plan released by the California High Speed Rail Authority said potential private investors “made it clear that they would need both financial and political commitments from state officials that government would share the risks to their participation.” The authority’s second business plan said private investors wanted revenue guarantees. Unsurprisingly, last month, the Legislative Analyst’s Office weighed in with an analysis saying a revenue guarantee violated the ban on subsidies.
Incredibly, however, the rail authority treated this as a minor semantic problem, with a spokesman saying it would instead offer a “ridership guarantee” – as if that wasn’t the same thing as a revenue guarantee.
So we sought the perspective of Curt Pringle – the capable, pragmatic mayor of Anaheim who is also the chairman of rail authority board.
Last week, Pringle e-mailed back to say authority lawyers were now trying to craft a legally defensible ridership guarantee. This was a welcome acknowledgment that this is a genuine issue. But he also said it is one of “many challenges” the project faced.
Huh? It is the most fundamental challenge of all. The law says the bullet-train system can’t have a public operating subsidy. The law says there must be substantial private investment or the project can’t be built. But private investors want a guarantee from the government limiting their risk – i.e., a subsidy – if the system doesn’t live up to projections.
All the legal trickery in the world can’t reconcile these conflicting facts. The bullet-train zealots staffing the rail authority will never admit this. At some point, however, Pringle will need to step up – and prove his reputation for pragmatism is deserved.
Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/feb/14/needed-a-pragmatic-pringle
Gilbert final thoughts. Until and unless Mr Pringle can “show us the money” to commence this grandious special interest project we must continue to keep the fire burning below his feet.
Mayor Pringle. A ridership “guarantee is a subsidy.”
Getting $2.25 billion in high speed rail Stimulus funding is barely a down payment for this 800 mile bullet train that the Reason Foundation has projected to cost upwards of $100 billion dollars by the time the entire track is in place. Voters were told that the system would be 800 miles when barely approving Prop 1A. It is not 800 miles from Anaheim to LA no matter how lost you can get driving on any of our freeways. If the CHSRA begins construction of this system without having funding for all 800 miles, and stops the project, CA voters would have been conned to get their approval for the $Nine billion of Prop 1A that is to be dedicated to this effort.
His Curtness needs to pony up the funding for his new ARTIC train station as well — all of it since private funding for his legacy project was never forthcoming (that wasn’t hard to predict as anyone invested in the bankrupt Anaheim Garden Walk would testify). Measure M was for roads and transit, not an edifice to his RINOship.
Grand Central Pringle was a damn foolish idea and millions have already been wasted on its planning — what’s going to happen to it when the High Speed Rail doesn’t make it to Anaheim (burrowed through HOW MANY neighborhoods from LA)?? Parking for Disney? Maybe then, and only then, with the Mouse pony up some money for these grand projects.
And why isn’t Jerry Brown looking into all these perverted, factually vapid ridership projections and revenue numbers? CHSRA is clearly a fraud that’s going after local AND federal money with “facts” based on lies.
This project has been promoted as a jobs program. Governor Schwarzenegger has said: “This funding would collectively create nearly 130,000 jobs throughout California.”
For a jobs program I suggest a more productive and less destructive effort would be the construction of a pyramid in one of our local deserts. In addition to using up a lot of manpower, it could be a tourist attraction and a permanent monument to government stupidity.
High speed rail will create jobs. Sounds good. No problem. Simply have the private sector come up with the funds to build this special interest project. Having climbed inside the Khufu pyramid at Ghiza as well as the Luxur Hotel with its Inclinator in Las Vegas I would welcome a new tourist attraction right here in CA.
#1 if you go to the ARTIC website you will see that $140,000,000 of the proposed $180,000,000 is supposed to come from Measure M – the County-wide sales tax.
*”Do not stand in the way of progress or you might get run over!”
Someone alot older and wiser said that!
In a state that has NO Jobs…NO Funds for Pensions and Retirements. NO Funds for Infrastructure….your attempt to steep your Earl Grey tea into reclaimed state and county water are fruitless.
High Speed Rail has public support. High Speed Rail has an opportunity for both International Trade, Job Creation, Higher Tax Base and “The Future Pay it Forward!”
Ask yourselves the following: Which Gubenatorial Candidates support High Speed Rail from either party? Which US Senatorial Candidates support High Speed Rail? And finally, Which members of the Assembly and the State Senate support High Speed Rail in California?
In the words of my stepfather: “YOU are pushing refuse against the tide!”
ARTIC is a cool project and so is High Speed Rail. As long as those projects do not ban Concealed Carry W’s…..who cares?
Brother Ron & Sister Anna. In a recent appearance with local elected officials in south county I asked Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner for his position on the CHSRA. He said he opposes it.
Would it be difference is the gov paid for and built the rail way corridor and then taxed the private rail companies to use it. Like they do with the freeways.
Cook. The government is US
We kept hearing about the “3P” regarding the CAHSR. “Public- Private- Partnership.”
We know about some of the government “investment” for this project but we can not be assured of the private sector committment as they must surely focus on ROI for their investors.
My next post may address OCTA regarding the shortfall in extended Measure M dollars.
Let me give you a preview.Anaheim Regional transportation Intermodal Center, AKA ARTIC
FY09/10 Phase 1 Development $8,500,000; Consultant support $4,800,000; Misc $612,400 for a total of $13,912,400. Now let’s look at:
M-1-$54 million less than projected
M-2-38% less than originally anticipated over 30 years.
Deferred Metrolink fare increase means pressure to increase subsidies.
Subsidies. That ugly word again. Source: OCTA Fiscal Year 2009-10 Budget Workshop
So while we listen to OCTA CEO Will Kempton speak of further cutbacks in local transit for those who cannot afford to own a car and must use local bus service we continue to pour money into Curt Pringle’s “special interest” project.
Yes we do need to have a transportation hub. But let’s share the wealth equally, especially to those who need assistance such as our students, nurses and other bus riders who need bus access to their jobs TODAY!!!
Ron & Anna Winship said that High Speed Rail has public support. There is public support for many projects if the public is unaware of the cost or if they think someone else is paying for it.
What was not asked: Will you pay $xxx per trip as a user or as a supporting taxpayer?
Ernst. Public support. Sure, if you don’t care who pays for it. For the record. The majority of the electorate in OC, SD and Riverside Counties all voted NO on Prop 1A when the state approved $9.95 billion of new debt.
I just watched a rebroadcast of a panel discussion with moderator Mark Baldassare, PPIC president, and assembly members Noreen Evans and Jim Nielsen along with senators Robert Dutton and Denise Ducheny, representing both major parties, admitting that we will have a deficit next year. So while we struggle to fund education, prisons and other services some idiots are stumping for high speed rail that cannot operate without a subsidy. Brilliant. But Larry, it’s called progress, or keeping up with Asia and Europe. Not today.